Gonzaga Chokes Again, Why We're All Rooting for Duke & Friday Sweet 16 Preview

Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre

On today's episode, Jason and Producer Rob G bring you wall-to-wall reaction to the Thursday slate of games in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Things got off to a rocky start when the top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs (a team that our fearless leader dropped over $50,000 on in a Calcutta auction) got upset by the Arkansas Razorbacks. Yes, the officiating was bad, but it was clear pretty early on that the Zags just could not handle the Arkansas pressure. Chet Holmgren, Drew Timme and Andrew Nembhard are all fine student athletes, but they didn't have enough 'dog' in them to physically compete with a scrappy Arkansas team. In many ways, Gonzaga in college basketball is eerily similar to Notre Dame in college football: a fine program that isn't quite tough enough to hang with the big boys of the Power 5 conferences. Later, the guys explain why they believe that most sports fans should be rooting for Coach K, Paolo Banchero and the Duke Blue Devils to win the NCAA Tournament this year. With so many #1 seeds exiting early (Gonzaga, Arizona and Baylor), the sport needs either a marquee player or a marquee school to win it all. Thankfully, Duke has both. If the goal of the NCAA Tournament is to bring eyeballs to your product, the powers that be who run college basketball better have their fingers crossed that we get something like Duke-Kansas in the championship game as opposed to an Arkansas-Houston rock fight. Finally, Jason and Rob G close the show with a preview of the entire Friday slate of the Sweet 16. Here's to hoping the Blue Bloods flex their muscle!

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